neighborhood cats and chickens

[cimorene]

There are several outdoor cats in our neighborhood. In descending order of how often we see them, there's

1. A friendly brown tabby tomcat I call the "brown boy", sturdy Finnish farmcat type with short fur. He's always on urgent kitty business, on his way from one place to another, when we meet him, but he's extremely talkative and runs right over to be petted, chatting the whole time. One time we were walking by and I saw him cutting across a parking lot with the obvious intention of crossing the highway in front of the roundabout, and I called out to him in alarm because crossing the highway is dangerous, and he yelled back to me from across the parking lot, then swerved to come over and say hi but not close enough to be petted, he just stood at arms' length chatting for a bit in a friendly way and craning over his shoulder like "I really must dash~!" and then he trotted off on his way. I suppose at least the roundabout forces the cars to slow so maybe it's a bit safer there, idk.



2. A INCREDIBLY friendly polydactyl red tabby I call "Polydactyl". He leaves the most adorable little footprints with one extra toe visible - we always knew when he'd been by when it was snowy! He practically jumps up into your arms when he comes to say hi and he has followed us around the garden talking and begging for attention several times.



3. A lilac-point colorpointed cat with medium-length fur I refer to as "Lilac". She must live nearby because I spot her at a distance or sneaking through our yard pretty regularly, but she is shy. She has stayed to talk a few times, but she hasn't let either of us pet her.



4. A tuxedo cat who once climbed up on a handy table to peer in the window because they couldn't see that I was inside watching from that angle. This one is also shy and I've never seen them closeup. I call them "Tux".



5. A long-haired forest cat type, brown tabby with standard white bib and splotches. I've never seen it up close either, but I'd say it's a male by the jowls. It really has that majestic mini wildcat look, but I call it "Forest Kitty", which undersells its dignity a bit.



6. I met a new kitty Friday! A friendly white cat with one blue and one green eye who came out from a nap under the neighbor's van to be petted when it saw me walking by! We had a whole conversation and it kept walking around my feet purring violently. So cute.

These neighbors live sort of catty-corner from us and they have at least one tiny dog and some chickens, but the chicken coop is sort of sheltered from the road from both sides with just the edges visible so I had never seen the chickens until Friday. While I was standing chatting by their driveway with Heterochromic Kitty, a rooster was crowing every five seconds or so, and after a minute he made an appearance from behind the van and started strutting slowly towards us. He was a little on the small side and black. As he was inching forwards he was followed by two hens, a chunky white one and a magnificent one with feathered legs (I thought a Brahma at first, but looking at pictures online now I think not). So all three of them were just wandering about in the driveway under the cat's supervision (intentional or otherwise), although I'm pretty sure there was a person back there in the yard blocked from view by the van and the hedges and the chicken house etc.

The rooster's continued crowing in little spells but a bunch of times per day and pretty much at all hours, every day since then, so I assume he's out and about in the yard where the sound can easily carry through our livingroom window. Also, Wax says he might be a young rooster because "sometimes they practice". I know they've had chickens the last few years, but I've only heard a rooster from their yard a couple of times before now, once at like 4 am, so perhaps they didn't have a rooster before, or replaced an old one.

I really would love to have some chickens, but we definitely have too many animals to think about that for the present.

Comments

[torachan]

Aww, neighbor kitties!

We always like seeing kitties on our nightly walks and there's a big orange boy who is super friendly and always so happy to see us, who was the reason we decided we wanted an orange cat last time we adopted. (And Ollie is definitely the sort of friendly kitty who would be super excited to see whoever walked by if he was allowed outdoors!) Some of our close neighbors (including next door) have cats who like to come in our yard sometimes, but they're all shy types who don't want to be petted.

[cimorene]

I love when they run right up to see you! It's great. And the polydactyl kitty following us around our garden and continuing to ask for more attention was just so incredibly cute. He must live somewhere nearby to pass our yard so frequently on his rounds.